60 THENEWYORKER, NOVEMBER 4, 2019
“ You still live with your parents?”
••
hummed to the children, looking around
the group, but always landing on Earl—
so it seemed to Earl, anyway. “No, suh!
You are spirits from the past, yes, come
to save us from the present, oh yes.”
Then he began singing a song. The lyr
ics were strange but easy: Coon on the
moon, oh yes, we on the moon. The boys
laughed, slapped one another demonstra
tively on the back, but they sang along.
All except Earl, now urgently selfcon
scious. How did he look? Was he stand
ing strongly? Did he look as soft as he
felt? He clutched the marbles until their
hardness hurt his fingers. He didn’t sing.
He stared.
No one even heard Mr. Dick steer
the Softee icecream truck down the
street and away.
P
astor John hummed stories. Bibli
cal, he said, though no one had ever
read any of them in the New King James
Version. Boy Jesus withering the hand
of a child who’d stolen his favorite toy.
The toy, a carving of a boat that Joseph
had made for him. The thief boy had
cried and cried, Pastor John said. Who
wouldn’t, with those frozen fingers?
But spiteful kid Jesus had pouted, re
fused to make the hands well again.
“And guess who that little thief grew
up to be?” Pastor asked. Earl was already
standing apart. He felt the pastor ask
ing him. Him, specifically. Earl had never
stolen anything. His father had warned
him about stealing since he was a kid.
Dad had said kidnapping was a form of
stealing: stealing a person. If Earl ever
stole, well—karma, he’d get stolen, too.
Sure, Dad was always saying weird things
to Earl. But now Earl really wanted to
answer the pastor’s question the right
way. Maybe it was a trick question. Maybe
his cousin, who stole Now & Laters, was
the thief? Wasn’t that how this all worked,
applying the Scripture to your own life?
None of the boys answered.
Pastor John shook his head, disap
pointed in them—or maybe just in Earl.
“St. John,” the pastor said. “The thief was
the beloved apostle St. John.” Now the
pastor’s voice rose, a lifting, courageous
thing all by itself. “Oh, yes! Jesus’ best
friend! He was the thief! The one who
would rest his wizened hand on Jesus’
bosom. You see.” He paused to look at
the boys. “You see, Jesus loved even his
enemy. He even put his own mother in
John’s care. You hear?” Earl heard.
In fact, he’d only recently heard about
the beloved apostle at all. When his par
ents brought him to Soulsville for the
summer, Gram and Pop had made them
all, parents included, go to Grace Bap
tist as one big family. During the read
ing about the beloved apostle, Earl’s
father had said, “Sounds like Jesus is
a faggot.” Loud enough for people to
turn around. “Gary,” Ellenora had said
through her teeth. She shot her own
parents a look, hugged her one and only
son closer to her. Away from his father.
Brent had cracked up so hard that Pop
had to drag him out of the sanctuary.
So now Earl heard. Heard Pastor
John speak about the apostle John. Earl
looked over at his cousin and smiled a
forced smile. He hoped it looked forgiv
ing. Earl, for sure, had wanted to shrivel
Brent’s arms and nose when he’d beaten
him at marbles the Sunday before, and,
before that, when Brent had laughed at
Earl’s father in church. Once, Earl had
wished leprosy on a kid from school who
teased him for being a dope, even though
Earl was older and taller and, according
to his mother, more handsome and more
smart. “Those kids are just jealous of
you,” his mother had said. Though who
could be jealous of a boy with no broth
ers and a lunatic dad? Earl had prayed
for an African famine to visit his en
tire school, and then there’d been a food
shortage for a week, hot dogs with a drop
of ketchup every single day. Which, as
far as Earl was concerned, could mean
only one thing. Some kids at his school
dreamed of being SpiderMan—but Earl
dreamed of being the Messiah.
That day God’s Caravan left with the
sun. Shouted “Oh! Susanna” into the
sunset. Brent turned to Earl. “That sure
was better than church,” he said. Earl
nodded, feeling a compulsion coming
over him. The other boys were looking
at Earl—studying him, maybe. One by
one, Earl took each cloudy world out of
his pockets and returned to each boy
what he had won from him. Then Brent
and Earl walked toward home, singing,
“Coon on the moon, oh yes, we on the
moon.” Like that was a completely peachy
thing for black boys to be singing in
the birthplace of Stax Records and the
deathplace of Martin Luther King, Jr.
They walked into their grandparents’
house in Soulsville singing that. It was
near the end of the bassbeating nineties.
But what was so wrong? The Grace
Baptist Church people were always
